A Professional License to Kill, Slowly!

This can easily be dismissed with a typical "conspiracy theory" excuse - an excuse convenient for maintaining the status quo. But two deaths in a row are enough to elevate this criminal phenomenon above the level of coincidences.

Some years ago, one of my erstwhile neighbors won the lottery. Being a self-made woman, she had lot of relatives in not-so-well circumstances. Naturally, they suddenly remembered her.

But what amused her more was the sudden rush of phone calls from total strangers, most of them financial and legal experts who suddenly wanted to manage her big fortune.

The phone calls were very respectful, peppered with "Mrs....", "madam" and the finest words of decency and civility we Americans have forgotten in our daily, sometimes mad, rat race.

An unknown small-time bookkeeper in the near-rustic environs of suburbia, she couldn't but laugh at the sudden attention she received from big stock brokerages and financial advisers of the nation - actually their local minions. She had nothing to do with them so far except watching their costly advertisements in the media, meant for high net worth people.

But being a religious person, she believed "her heart is where her money is" and so, decided "her money should not be in places her heart cannot reach." In short, she became her own money manager.

One of the distraught financial experts, who couldn't get hold of her money, even gave her a parting warning,"If your money is not managed by experts, you will lose it."

But then she was not a young film or music celebrity who suddenly sprang into national fame right after high school. She had been a bookkeeper for some of the business owners in that area and knew enough at least not to lose her money.

Yes, most of our celebrities are flung suddenly into the limelight at a very young age that they do not have enough experience dealing with money matters.

And with millions pouring in, they will think it is beneath their dignity to mind the pennies.

That is the best playground for "greedy" pretenders to step in as "money managers." They can be:

1. Parents - Though parents should have been the ideal caretakers, that is not what usually happens. One problem with this arrangement is that, being parents, they are concerned that their other children are not so fortunate. So they try to spread the wealth. Most of the time the beneficiary siblings will end up as lazy parasites. At some point, the celebrity child will find a soul mate from the outside world and hell breaks out in the family.

2. Spouses - If being the manager of a celebrity is the only job a celebrity spouse has, that is going to be detrimental, as it is very convenient to shut out second opinions and thoughts.

3. Office Staffers - These usually become the close confidantes, if the celebrity is a single. With money gushing in and out, it is a breeding ground for swindlers. Petty cash and day-to-day money dealings are handled through such people. If they were previously employed by another celebrity, they come to the new job already armed with "Swindling A Celebrity For Dummies."

4. Professional Experts - These are the most dangerous out of the four, because society accords special status to them due to their professional education, not usually associated with crimes and criminals. They are learned "leeches" who can bleed a celebrity with the finesse and patience required of a professional. They are aware of the legalities involved beforehand, so they know how to deflect attention from themselves when a celebrity eventually dies a slow death. They may come from many specialties - medical, financial and legal. Since media gives undue credence to what such "learned" criminals say, it becomes very easy for helping such slow homicides by acts of omission.

But let us remember, their mainstream counterparts are making money from ordinary people while these guys have hitched their wagons to just one star.

And if the star foolishly names them in his or her will, which invariably has their professional stamp behind it, there is one more incentive to get the star done away with early.

When Deepak Chopra said recently that some Hollywood specialists have a license to kill, I initially felt he was talking too much. On second thought, probably he is right.

Though, he was talking about Hollywood's medicine men who feed drugs to celebrities, Deepak Chopra's words can be equally applied to celebrity advisers from other fields too. Some greedy professionals have licenses to kill!